You know those anti-spam tests that make you enter funny characters to prove you're a human? Well, non-humans can finally fake their way into systems using the "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" too—even Yahoo's pretty secure system, according to new reports.

A Russian security researcher known only as "John Wane" (sic) says that his team has developed a system that correctly identifies the images from Yahoo's CAPTCHA system 35% of the time. According to one analyst, the irony is that the image recognition used to fight off the current generation of image-embedded spam will now be used to create the next wave of spam itself.

Yahoo apparently confirmed that this was the case:

We are aware of attempts being made toward automated solutions for CAPTCHA images and continue to work on improvements as well as other defenses.

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This doesn't just finger Yahoo, since the verification technique is used by other online e-mail providers too. In the words of the analyst, the hack "could be used for spam...could be used for phishing...could create a fairly significant number of e-mail accounts." I'm thinking this also means I'm screwed next time I want tickets for a concert, too. [TMCNet via Slashdot]